


Fretted Gold

by viceindustrious



Category: Paradise Lost - John Milton
Genre: Advent Challenge 2010, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-20
Updated: 2011-06-20
Packaged: 2017-10-20 14:25:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/viceindustrious/pseuds/viceindustrious
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The architect and the entrepreneur.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fretted Gold

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day six of the adventchallenge. Prompt: Angels. Writing this basically for myself to cheer myself up because it's been a long, cold day and I'm tired.

"I thought you spoke well," Mulciber says, his voice soft with apology.

Mammon cannot see him as he lays upon his back, staring at the latticework of gold stretched vast across the ceiling. It blazes high above them, furious and defiant of the shadows that should rightly pool there, snaring each mote of light within its net and holding them fast.

"The verdict was never in question, Mulciber," Mammon says.

He stretches his hand up into the air, straight as a pillar, as any one of the huge, carved columns of marble that stand in Pandaemonium. Mulciber touches his fingertips and they both flinch at the still-so-strange solidity of their skin, at the discomforting surety of the flesh separating their spirits.

"Do you truly believe that?" Mulciber asks.

"It doesn't matter."

Mulciber's laugh echoes around the empty walls of the counsel chamber. "Do you truly believe _that_?"

Mammon smiles and takes hold of Mulciber's wrist, dragging him down onto the floor. Their bodies touch in a thousand places at once, senses fluttering like the memory of falling through storm clouds. Mammon places his hands, each finger ringed with gold that Mulciber carved from the earth himself, on either side of Mulciber's face.

"You created this," he says.

Mulciber looks down at him, eyes glittering with the reflected splendour of Mammon's own form. His expression is beautifully doubtful. Exquisitely troubled.

He leans up and kisses the line of worry gilding Mulciber's brow.

"It is more sublime than anything you built in Heaven," Mammon says, touching his lips to Mulciber's cheek. Wonders, awed by the warmth of the blush rising there. "It is more _heavenly_ than anything they have left."

In the distance there is a burst of music, voices raised together in perfect harmony, but they are both insensible to anything beyond this embrace.

"I know what matters," Mammon says and presses a kiss to the ruby shine of Mulciber's mouth.


End file.
